UPI NewsTrack Quirks in the News

Orangutan short-circuited fence

ADELAIDE, Australia, May 11 (UPI) -- An orangutan that escaped from its enclosure at an Australian zoo used a tree branch to evade the electric fence around its enclosure, witnesses said.

Adelaide Zoo visitors said the 27-year-old orangutan returned to its enclosure after failing to make it past a second fence, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday.

"It was amazing how he did it, because he actually got a branch, pulled it over the electric fence and then got over," witness Ryan Johnston, 11, said of the animal's escape.

Zoo curator Peter Whitehead said the incident was not the first time the female primate has tried to outsmart her keepers.

"This animal has a history of trying to outsmart and be a little bit smarter, and she's an animal which has caused lots of keepers a lot of late hours," he said.

Swedish toads win song contest

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 11 (UPI) -- The online European Bombina Song Contest, which compares the songs of fire-bellied toads in European countries, was won by an amphibian choir in Sweden.

Sweden's toads won 70 percent of the votes in the contest, beating out toads singing in their natural habitats in Lithuania, Germany and Denmark, Swedish news agency TT reported Monday.

Claes Andren of the Nordens Ark wildlife preserve in Bohuslan, Sweden, where the toad songs were recorded, said the country's amphibians also won the previous competition in 2007.

"Last time we claimed 80 percent of the votes," he said.

Andren said fire-bellied toads were declared extinct in Sweden in 1960 but the species is being reintroduced to the country using eggs from Denmark.

"Now Sweden has one of Europe's finest populations of fire-bellied toads," he said.

Brits turn to wallabies for lawn control

BUNGAY, England, May 11 (UPI) -- Wallaby breeders in Britain say demand is soaring as private land owners turn to the marsupials to keep their grass short.

Trevor Lay, owner of Waveney Wildlife in Bungay, England, said he used to breed only 15 animals a year for zoos and animal parks but since private land owners began buying the animals about five years ago he has been breeding 35 each year, The Times of London reported Monday.

"It's crazy. To be honest, if I had 100 I could easily get rid of them," said Lay, who has been breeding wallabies for 25 years and is the largest private supplier in Britain.

Fellow breeder Quintin Spratt of Tacolneston, England, said his business has also been booming as a result of people using them to control large lawns.

The breeders said prospective wallaby owners need at least half an acre of land with a lot of grass and a fence at least 5 feet high around the property.

"Anyone who can keep a rabbit can keep a wallaby. They are lovely, gregarious animals," Lay said.

Cops: Underwear-clad man broke windshield

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., May 11 (UPI) -- Police in Port St. Lucie, Fla., arrested a 42-year-old underwear-clad man for allegedly busting a neighbor's car windshield with an axe handle.

In a police affidavit released Monday officers said that when they responded to a complaint at 3 a.m. Sunday they found Nicholas T. Doud walking around in his underwear near a vehicle with a smashed windshield and a flattened rear tire, TCPalm.com said.

Arresting officers said that inside the damaged vehicle was an ax handle with "Walking small -- your face here" written on it in black marker.

Doud told police his fingerprints would likely be found on the ax handle, but denied having any knowledge of how the car's windshield became smashed, officers said.

When asked why he was only wearing underwear officers said Doud, "stated that he likes to walk around in his underwear and that he does this often."

TCPalm.com said Doud's wife said he was a paranoid schizophrenic, and that they had trouble with the neighbors because of Doud's loud guitar playing.

Doud was taken to jail and booked on a charge of criminal mischief.